Well, five small loaves of bread and two sardines wouldn’t go very far, even for a family of five, let alone a crowd of 5,000 hungry people. Why, a mass feeding like that would ordinarily require a ton of food.

But this was no ordinary supper, this feeding of the 5,000. It was the Lord’s provision, and it was abundant. It exhibited the miraculous power and kindly compassion of Jesus. “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.”

This miracle, the twelve disciples thought, was impossible. One of them, Andrew, (according to John’s account) was skeptical from the beginning. “There is a boy here with five barley loaves and two fish,” Andrew said, “but how far will they go among so many?”

I have to admit, the thought has crossed my mind more than once: “Even Jesus could not feed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two little fish. Maybe the story was not supposed to be taken literally; perhaps it was only intended to illustrate Jesus’ beatitude: ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’” But then I remembered that Jesus was the Word who in the beginning was with God, and in fact was God, and that with God all things are possible. Since “through him all things were made,” why should I doubt that he could take a few barley loaves and a couple of fish and create an abundant supper for any number of people?

On World Communion Sunday, Christians all over the world gather in small groups and large crowds to celebrate the global unity of the church and to bear witness that our Lord Jesus was sent by the Father into the world to be the savior of the world. World Communion Sunday originated in the Presbyterian Church some 70 years ago. From the beginning, in 1936, it was intended that other denominations would be included in this special day, and after a few years the idea spread beyond the Presbyterian Church.

World communion has special significance in an age in which “globalization” – meaning global economy and governance – emphasizes cultural and religious diversity. But today we are celebrating our unity in Christ. We acknowledge in fact that the world population is one human race, as Paul reminded the Greeks in Athens : “From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth” (Acts 17:26 ).

When we assemble at the town clock this morning, we will have come from several locations and represent different congregations, but we all have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father” (Eph. 4:5-6). And the same Lord provides daily bread for the billions of people the world over. Our everyday meals – the barbecued ribs cooked on the grill as well as the Big Mac you pick up at McDonald’s drive-by window – are provisions of our God and Father. How well fed we all are, thanks to Christ’s abundant provision!

I love John Calvin’s comment on the feeding of the five thousand. “Christ did not provide great delicacies for the people, but they who saw his amazing power displayed in that supper were obliged to rest satisfied with barley-bread and fish without sauce. And though he does not now satisfy five thousand men with five loaves, still he does not cease to feed the whole world in a wonderful manner.”

But even more wonderful is his abundant provision at the communion table.

The latest religious census estimates the worldwide Christian population to be two billion, fifteen and a half million. And our Lord provides for that vast multitude the true food and drink unto life eternal. For when you eat the bread and drink from the cup, faithfully remembering Jesus, you share all the benefits of his crucified body and shed blood. The sacrament – I need to emphasize this -- is not mere symbolism. It is a means of grace to everyone who receives it with faith in him who said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. . . .This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51 ).

I am here in your pastor’s place today because he is in Brazil, where Friday evening he officiated in the wedding of his old friend Robson Gomes’s daughter Aline.

In his weekly E-pistle, which he sent on Friday from Brazil , he mentioned God’s gift of friendship, and his closing remarks show that he was remembering his Park Presbyterian friends back home; perhaps he was thinking that we are “like sheep without a shepherd”!

Bill’s closing pastoral comment to all of us is this: “Sunday is World Communion Sunday in Beaver, as well, the day of the great procession of the churches to the common table of the God who not only blesses friendships, but, by the Cross of Christ, dares to call us his friends.”

Today, God calls each of us to wholehearted devotion to Christ, like John Wesley, who expressed his supreme desire in world-communion terms: “I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.”